


Don't Ask, Don't Tell

by Kittywitch



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alcohol, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and the Brigadier share a bottle of wine and start rumors at UNIT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Ask, Don't Tell

    His paperwork was finished and cleared away, his gun was cleaned, and he was quite ready to go off duty. There was only one matter left to attend to. It was somewhere between saying goodnight to a frustrating coworker that you somehow became friends with and a zookeeper checking the latch on the lion's enclosure before leaving the zoo.  
    Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart rapped smartly on the door to the lab with his knuckles, then entered. As he suspected, there was a silver-haired fop tidying up his work and humming to himself.  
    "Still here, then, Doctor?"  
    "Unless your powers of observation are greatly misleading you, Lethbridge-Stuart, yes, I am in fact still here."  
    The Doctor turned in place, hooking the heel of his boot on his stool.  
    "Has something drastic come up? It's a bit late."  
    "Not at all, I'm just popping in on my way out." he nodded. "See if you can't get some sleep, I'm quite sure we'll find you a new crisis to fiddle with in the morning."  
    A thought occurred, and Lethbridge-Stuart cocked an eyebrow.  
    "You do need sleep, don't you, Doctor?"  
    "I've got a short commute." he answered, jerking his head towards what appeared to be a police box standing in the corner of the lab. "I've still got perfectly functional quarters in there, even if the old girl's grounded."  
    "I see. It rather makes one wonder why it is you need the second rust-bucket, Doctor."  
    "I'll not hear a word against either the TARDIS or Bessie, brigadier." the Doctor said shortly, standing up from his work bench. Lethbridge-Stuart glanced around the room. It seemed quite large until he contemplated only leaving it to tinker in the motor pool.  
    "Don't you ever leave your lab, Doctor?"  
    "You know perfectly well I do. Whenever you've found me something new to investigate." He dusted off his hands on a handkerchief and crossed the room.  
    "Although at the moment, all I intend to investigate tonight is this merlot." He retrieved the bottle from where it had been hidden in plain sight among a selection of chemicals. "Not a bad year; mind you, not nearly as good as a two thousand eighty-six, but I'm hardly going to find one of those when I'm grounded."  
    "Ah, still tinkering with your infernal machine, then?"  
    "Yes." he replied, drawing the sound somewhat into his nose. He crossed the room to the glasswares cupboard, and removed a wine goblet from where it was hiding among test tubes and vials. The Doctor paused, regarded the brig curiously, and drew out a second, which he tilted towards his reluctant friend.  
    "Care to join me?" the alien asked. The Brigadier stiffened.  
    "That's an absurd suggestion, I couldn't possibly drink on duty."  
    "You were about to leave the base." the Doctor pointed out. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Brigadier, but won't that put you off duty?"  
    "I'm not off the base yet." he replied stiffly.  
    "Very well, but don't say I never offered you hospitiality. And I suppose you've got a much better plan for the night, in any case." said the Doctor, though his smile proved he didn't believe it for a moment.  
    Lacking a reason not to, he drew a stool to the empty workbench and prepared to get pissed with his odd friend. The Doctor grinned.  
    "You'll regret this, but you'll enjoy regretting it."  
  
  
  
    Entirely too soon, in Lethbridge-Stuart's opinion, the bottle was half-empty. The Doctor's half, surely. He could barely feel it at all, but then again, he could always hold his liquor well, and this was only wine. Now if only the walls would stop being silly and meet the floor at a respectable angle, he'd be just fine. A velvet frock coat had been flung, somewhat haphazardly, over a chair, leaving the swaying alien in his shirtsleeves.  
    "...not your subordinate, my dear man." the Doctor finished. "I'm an independent advisor. I can't join the military on account of being an illegal alien."  
    "Nonsense, Doctor. You're the legalist alien I know."  
    "No no no, Alistair. I'm not. I'm wanted on several planets. I wouldn't even be  here if I wasn't being punished for my crimes."  
    "Pity you're shtuck on the one planet you're _not_ wanted." Lethbridge-Stuart quipped, his face cracking. "Still, you haven't tried to destroy the Earth, and that makes you the legalist alien I have ever had the displeasure to meet."  
    "Not _yet_ , my _dear_ brigadier..." he laughed, drawing his face uncomfortably close to the other man's. Lethbridge-Stuart raised his hand and pressed it against the Doctor's mouth, pushing his face away slightly. The Doctor crossed his eyes to look at it.  
    "That'sh enough wine for you, I think." he said firmly.  
    "I wushn't gooin tuh kishu." the Doctor said, a slight slur turned to outright gibberish against the other man's fingers.  
    "Forgive me for being cautious." he replied unapologetically, not removing his hand. "You're more than familiar enough sober, and  now you've got half a bottle of wine in you." The Doctor's eyes crinkled at being called 'familiar', he might have used the word "affectionate".  
    " _Mush mush mush_." he laughed, making exaggerated kissing motions on the brig's fingers. Disgusted, Lethbridge-Stuart drew his hand away and wiped it on his uniform. The Doctor was laughing.  
    "I jusht wanted your breath out of my face." the brigadier explained in the even tone of someone trying to prove their sobriety. This made the alien laugh more.  
    "Disappointed, Alistair?"  
    "Shut it, you. And refill my glass."  
    "I'll be happy do so the minute you admit you can't fault a man for his breath when your drinking the same wine."  
  
    "Night shift, Benton?"  
    "Paperwork, captain. Blew up an alien."  
    "Ah, yes. Rather takes the thrill out of it, doesn't it?" Yates replied, nodding. This conversation was cut short as both men paused to listen to a peculiar noise. They first leaned towards it's source with bemused expressions before fully investigating it.  
    It didn't take them long to trace it to the open doorway which lead to the only possible place it anything of that nature could have come, something considered bizarre by two men whose job was largely to fight extraterrestrial threats. From the doorway of the laboratory spilled two robust tenors that were very nearly in harmony.  
    " _...she once swept and Admiral off of his feet, the ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat; and now the old boy's in command of the fleeeeeet...._ "  
    The two men sat in behind the Doctor's workbench, half-supported by it, the other half of their weight distributed over each other's shoulders. Lethbridge-Stuart was merrily swinging the bottle, which was empty, and the Doctor a goblet, which was not.   
    The enlisted in the doorway stared at this scene, then each other.  
    "I take it this is the part where we don't ask, Mike?" Benton asked as politely as he could manage under the circumstances. Yates took a final glance at his C.O. and shut the door.  
    "In this instance I don't believe we have to."

**Author's Note:**

> I have a headcanon that the Doctor is specifically cited in UNIT's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. "Do not speculate on the relationship between your commanding officer and his scientific adviser."  
> This was originally posted to my deviantArt.


End file.
